This disclosure relates to health and beauty products and devices—and their methods of use—for exfoliating lips to improve the appearance and health of the lips.
Most areas of human skin have sebaceous glands, which produce oil (sebum) to moisturize and protect the skin, and sweat (sudoriferous) glands, which provide moisture and regulate body temperature. In contrast, the lips have no sebaceous glands and no sweat glands. Saliva is the only natural source of lubrication for the lips, which makes them particularly vulnerable to becoming dry and chapped. For this reason, there are many products on the market for protecting and beautifying lips, including a wide range of lip balms, glosses, and lipsticks. However, because of the lack of natural oils, lips cannot adequately wick away salts and other debris—e.g., food particles, sugars, chemicals, dry skin, etc.—before the application of such a lip balm, gloss, or lipstick, which may serve only to seal in debris against the lips. As a result, even when a product is applied to the lips, they may still become dry and chapped. This is why chapped lips can occur even with the application of a lip balm or other product.
As used herein, the term “lip balm” includes, without limitation, lip balms, lip glosses, lip sticks, and other cosmetics for treating or beautifying the lips.
Currently there exist products intended to help prevent the problem of chapped lips when applying a lip balm. However, these existing products all suffer from drawbacks. For example, existing lip scrubs require the use of water with the scrub, which means that normally they would be applied in front of a bathroom sink and require several steps to apply and remove. This can be time-consuming and inconvenient when on the go.
Also, lip balms exist which include a solvent for dissolving salt and sugars on the lips. After applying such a balm, the consumer is supposed to rub their lips together to dissolve the debris. However, this method requires the consumer to rub their lips together aggressively, which can be uncomfortable, unattractive, and frequently ineffective. It is, in fact, quite difficult to dissolve all of the salt and sugar particles from the lips using this method. In most cases, the consumer is supposed to leave the balm on their lips after application, which means that the salts and sugars are never completely removed. Thus, small salt and sugar particles are left on the lips along with excess balm. Moreover, such lip balms only include solvents for certain types of debris and, thus, may be completely ineffective at removing other types of particles.
There are dry abrasives which may be used for exfoliating lips. However, such dry abrasives have not been integrated into an end product in a way that is convenient and easy for the consumer to use with their preferred lip balm while on the go.
Thus, there is a need for an effective lip exfoliator that is convenient and easy for the consumer to use while on the go. The present invention(s) are directed towards lip exfoliating devices and methods that solve these and other problems in the art.